August 25, 2019 “Urgent” – Luke 13:10-17

Luke 13:10-17
“Urgent”
August 25, 2019 – Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

She hobbled over to sit in a chair under a big sign which read “Triage.” We were in the emergency room of McKenzie Willamette Hospital years ago. Our daughter Joanna had twisted her ankle. After several days the swelling looked worse rather than better. So we came to have an x-ray and find out if she had broken something.

We were pleased when she was immediately directed to that triage chair. A nurse began to examine her foot and ask how it happened. No name and address, no questions about insurance, just swift attention to the injury. The first priority was to determine the urgency of her case. Did our daughter need quick attention to save life or limb, or could she sit and wait her turn behind more urgent needs?

In our text today we find Luke, who was a physician, giving us a glimpse of Jesus the Great Physician in the act of triage. As soon as He saw the bent-over woman, we read in verse 12, He announced her healing. Verse 13 says, “When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight…” For Jesus, her case as extremely urgent.

Yet you might wonder just how truly urgent it was to heal this woman. She had suffered from her scoliosis (or whatever condition) for a long time. Verse 10 says she had been crippled for eighteen years. By any modern concept of medical triage, this was not an urgent case at all.

“Triage,” as we know it, was first conceived by Dominique-Jean Larrey, chief surgeon of Napoleon’s army. The French word means “to sort.” Larrey hit upon the idea that those wounded in battle should be sorted according to the urgency of their injuries. He wrote, “Those who are dangerously wounded should receive the first attention, without regard to rank or distinction. They who are injured in a less degree may wait until their brethren-in-arms, who are badly mutilated, have been operated and dressed, otherwise the latter would not survive many hours; rarely until the succeeding day.”

The triage nurse at the emergency room determined Joanna’s ankle was not urgent. After his quick exam, he had us take a seat. We filled out the usual paperwork. Only then, after other more dire cases, did she see a doctor and get her foot x-rayed. It wasn’t broken. Waiting for treatment was annoying, but no real problem.

That woman’s bent physique was not life threatening. She lived with it for eighteen years. “Why not,” as the ruler of the synagogue implies in verse 14, “come back tomorrow?” One day? No big deal when you’ve waited years.

There were also good, solid reasons of faith for waiting a little longer to heal this woman. The synagogue leader quoted no less than the Ten Commandments when he spoke to the people saying, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, but not on the Sabbath day.” That’s Exodus 20 verse 9. Six days for work, only one day for rest. Ample time in the week for non-urgent medical practice. Why break the fourth Commandment, why profane the Sabbath, when it’s not really necessary, not urgent at all?

You might imagine this is just one more demonstration by Jesus that He overrules the Old Testament. Once the grace of God arrives in Christ, all that old Law stuff is passé and irrelevant. The Sabbath doesn’t matter anymore. Do whatever needs to be done any day of the week. We need not be constrained by ancient forms and rituals. The synagogue leader was too legalistic. He doesn’t understand the gracious, spontaneous ministry of Jesus. Jewish religion was rigid tradition. Jesus came to make a final break with all that.

We might be feeling pretty smug at this point. Our hospitals, even those with Christian background, are open 24/7. Unlike Christians of just a generation or two before us, we don’t worry much at all about what is allowable on a day of worship. No legalism here. We just get business done, whatever day of the week it is, whether it’s offering medical attention, mowing the lawn, grading papers, or slipping into the office for a few hours in the afternoon.

Yet if we think the lesson here is that keeping the Sabbath doesn’t matter, we need to think again. Where was Jesus that Sabbath morning? Was He strolling by the sea as He sometimes liked to do? Was He traveling on foot between cities as He did so often? Was He sitting outdoors on the mountainside gathering a crowd around Him to listen to His teaching? No. He was where? In the synagogue. He went to worship.

In fact, Jesus was lead worship that day. He was teaching. Jesus observed the Sabbath. He didn’t toss Jewish Law in the garbage like a used plastic bag. He Himself kept the Law, kept the fourth Commandment. He wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

It’s a mistake to think this is all about tradition versus innovation. Law versus grace. Ritual versus spontaneity. Forget the Sabbath. Forget Old Testament Law. Forget tradition. Listen to the Spirit and live in the moment. Do what comes naturally instead of worrying whether it’s religiously correct. But that is not what Jesus did. He kept the Sabbath. And He healed that poor woman. He did both.

It’s all explained by Jesus right here. Look what He said to the woman in verse 12 as He prepared to heal her: “Woman you are set free from your ailment.” Then go down to verses 15 and 16 in which He rebukes the synagogue ruler. He asks him, “Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the manger and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”

Do you see the theme in Jesus’ words? “Set free.” “Untie.” “Bound.” “Set free.” In Jesus’ eyes, this is not as much a miracle of healing as it is a miracle of deliverance. Verse 11 says that she had been crippled by a spirit. She was under the bondage of an evil power. Jesus came to set her free. And the Sabbath was the perfect day to do it.

The Sabbath was built by God into the very fabric of creation. God rested on the seventh day. After the Jews had been slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years, after they had endured cruel manual labor seven days a week mixing mud and straw into bricks for Pharaoh’s building projects, God set them free. One of the lasting signs of their freedom was the fourth Commandment. They were to be slaves no longer. They did not have to work and labor day after day without pause.

At least once a week, after the Exodus, Jewish people could sit down and relax, take deep breaths of God’s good air, and enjoy a little peace… and freedom. The Sabbath is about freedom. Even animals are untied, are set free on the Sabbath. Sabbath freedom is like God’s own freedom to rest. Life is not all about work. There comes a time when work is over and you simply, freely enjoy creation—just as God does. That’s why some of us went to the mountains the last few days, to enjoy God’s creation and rest.

Jesus observed the Sabbath. He not only observed the outward form of being present in worship on the seventh day. He observed the blessing at the very heart of that day. He released this unfortunate, enslaved woman into the freedom for which God intended her.

That’s why a condition which had lasted eighteen years was still urgent. That’s why the bent-over woman came to the top of Jesus’ triage. To have seen her there, on the Sabbath day, and failed to set her free would have been the real breaking of the Sabbath.

Our reading from Isaiah 58 speaks about keeping the Sabbath. But it begins with these words, followed by images of freedom and health, rebuilding of ruins, strong bones and supplies of water that never fail.

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.

Then when in verse 13 God talks about refraining from trampling the Sabbath, He says to refrain “from pursuing your own interests on my holy day.” He says honoring the Sabbath is “not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs.” Do you hear that? The work that is not to be done on the Sabbath is our own work, that which puts food in our own mouths or pays our own rent. But giving food to the hungry and healing the sick is perfect Sabbath day work, caring about the interests of other people, helping set them free like we are free.

Sabbath is urgent. It’s the urgency of setting people free in the name of Jesus Christ, free from all the ways the world binds us. Sickness, hunger, poverty, violence, all the reasons we’re glad to live in this country and other people come here looking for asylum. Our Lord Jesus came to set them all free, free not only from those earthy, physical bonds, but free from the spiritual evil which enslaves us all. That’s urgent, urgent for you and me. We are called to join our Lord in finding the poor and the lost and the enslaved and setting them free. That’s the business of the Sabbath.

The synagogue ruler missed the urgency of Sabbath freedom. He thought it was all about proper form and carefully delineated behavior. In business-speak he was concerned “to do things right” while failing “to do the right thing.” He missed what Sabbath was made for. He forgot what was truly urgent. As Christians, as a church, we want to be like Jesus. We want both to do things right and to do the right thing.

We have urgent Sabbath business because our Lord hasn’t quit setting people free. The miracles didn’t all stop when Jesus ascended into heaven. Christ the Physician still sees every person who is bent over in bondage. He sees and wants to set them free.

You may come this morning in your own bondage. It may be sickness or sin or poverty or bleak clouds of depression. To Jesus your situation as urgent. He wants to help. He wants to set you free. And He wants to use the rest of us to help do that. He wants you too to know the miracle of His grace.

I used to know a bent-over woman. Her name was Grace. She belonged to our church in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her osteoporosis, or whatever it was, left her as hunched over and crippled as that New Testament woman. Because of her condition, Grace never went out. In the eight years I was her pastor, she never made it to church. Yet she was set free by Jesus Christ.

So I visited Grace. Despite her infirmity she was full of vigor and wanted to serve others. Her ministry was handwork. She made beautiful ornaments and playthings. She loved making them for children. Her granddaughter taught school for children with disabilities. Once or twice a year, Grace would set up a production line in her home making thirty or more beautiful little stitched animals or Christmas tree ornaments decorated in sequins or other hand-made toys. Her face lit up with a big smile as she showed me what she was working on for the children that year.

Grace also loved music. When our minister of music decided to start a handbell choir, it was expensive, thousands of dollars for quality bells. She would never hear those bells played in our sanctuary, but Grace became the primary contributor in the fund drive. The thought of those clear tones ringing out praise to God filled her with gladness.

Grace loved life. She loved her Lord. I prayed for her when I visited, and she always had written out a little prayer for me which took out and read. She had a horrible disability, but in all that mattered most, Christ gave her freedom. She was bent-over, but she was one of the straightest people I’ve ever known. It was a miracle.

Jesus Christ can do that for you. You can be free from whatever binds and troubles you. It may not be, and probably won’t be, some flashy lightning bolt of healing which wipes illness from your body, reconciles your relationships, and removes troubling thoughts from your mind. But Jesus can and will give you real freedom right in the middle of all the darkness and trouble of life. You can stand up straight and free in Him.

So if you are troubled today, however it might be, that’s what I want you to know. You are urgent to Jesus, as urgent as the woman in the synagogue, as urgent as Grace in Nebraska, as urgent as anyone on earth. Jesus urgently wants to set you free. I pray you will trust Him to do that.

Remember, though, what the synagogue ruler forgot. We have urgent business. Being here on the Christian Sabbath, on the Lord’s day, reminds us of that business. People all around us are bent over, laboring under terrible burdens. We are reminded today by our prayers for those who are ill, for those who are starving, for those who don’t yet know Jesus.

Let us be busy, then. Sick people need our care. Lonely people need our friendship. God has called us to serve folks without homes. He’s asked us to worry about people in Haiti and India and Colombia. He invites us to share food and clothing through Food for Lane County and the mission. He wants us to teach children the Bible and learn it ourselves. God has loads of urgent work for us to do.

Jesus said even animals get care on the Sabbath, so taking care of God’s children is even more urgent. Verse 17 says, “all his opponents were put to shame, and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.” Let’s not be put to shame. Let’s not only do what’s right, but do the right things, the kind of things Jesus did.

God’s business is always both, to cherish the great tradition of Christian faith and worship while at the very same time remembering that right at the heart of that tradition, right at the heart of worship is the fact that Jesus came into the world to save people and to set them free. He had an urgent mission. It’s also our mission.

The urgency of Jesus is finally and ultimately to bring Sabbath rest and peace and wholeness to us all. There is an Irish saying, “When God made time, He made plenty of it.” In Jesus Christ, God made enough time for everyone, enough time to meet all the urgent needs of all people. May you and I both work urgently and rest confidently in that provision, in the eternal Sabbath which our Lord is giving to us.

Amen.